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Sustainability

Botanical PaperWorks Upcycles Pallets Into New Products

The seed-paper supplier is turning the shipping material into engraved coasters and soap dishes and plans to add more products to the line in the future.

Do a quick search for “upcycled pallets” on Pinterest, and you’ll find a slew of ideas for repurposing the wooden slabs after they’ve served their initial purpose of transporting heavy objects. There are instructions for pallet deck furniture, coffee tables, wall art and more.

Now, you can add promotional products to the list of creative reuses of wooden pallets. Winnipeg-based supplier Botanical PaperWorks (asi/41273) has launched a new line of products sourced from repurposed pallet wood.

Botanical Paperworks products

Botanical PaperWorks is repurposing used wooden pallets to create a line of upcycled promotional products.

It’s one of the many ways the seed-paper company is working to reduce waste and contribute to the circular economy, supplier executives said.

“We took a look at our manufacturing process and realized that we have a steady supply of wood pallets,” said CEO Heidi Reimer-Epp. “There’s no pallet recycling available in our city, so that’s when we got the idea to use it as an input.”

Now, she added, Botanical PaperWorks is “creating beautiful, useful products” from the pallets and saving them from the landfill in the process, in much the same way that it gives wastepaper a second life as seed paper.

Botanical PaperWorks collects wood from North American shipments and is transforming them into soap dishes and coasters. The coasters are treated with food-grade mineral oil and engraved with clients’ logos. The upcycled wood soap dishes and handmade bar of soap are wrapped with handmade recycled paper. The wooden soap dishes can also be engraved with a company logo.

The supplier says it plans to add more upcycled wood items to its product line in the near future.

Botanical PaperWorks has been making seed paper – biodegradable paper made from post-consumer material that can be planted and grow into wildflowers, herbs or vegetables – for more than 20 years. On its website, the supplier notes that it ships enough seeds each year to “provide a blooming natural habitat for bees, butterflies and birds that could stretch from sea to sea and cover all of North America.”

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